European Immunization Week

Last updated February 22, 2024

European Immunization Week (EIW) is an annual regional initiative, coordinated by the World Health Organization Regional Office for Europe (WHO/Europe), to promote immunization against vaccine-preventable diseases since its launch in 2008. EIW activities are carried out by participating WHO/Europe member states. In the past these have included: disseminating informational materials about immunization, organizing immunization campaigns, organizing training sessions for health care workers, arranging workshops or conferences with political decision makers to discuss immunization, and holding press conferences about immunization-related issues.

EIW takes place each year in April. The initiative has spread from the Americas and Europe to become a global immunization effort known as World Immunization Week.^[1] The initiative promotes the message that immunization of every child is vital in order to prevent diseases and protect life.^[2] The EIW slogan is: Prevent. Protect. Immunize.

As stated by WHO/Europe, the goal of EIW is threefold: to increase vaccination coverage across the European Region by raising public awareness about the benefits of immunization; to support national immunization systems; and to provide a framework for mobilizing public and political support for immunization efforts.

Background

The first EIW was conducted in October 2005 by the WHO/Europe and a number of Member States across the Region.^[3] The European Immunization Week (EIW) is an annual initiative to raise awareness, improve communication and advocate immunization across the WHO European Region.^[4]

EIW started out of a concern that immunization is becoming less valued because of the decline in the incidence of, and reduced fear of infectious diseases.^[4] Consequently, the coverage rates have declined in many countries across the WHO European Region; this has resulted in large, sporadic disease outbreaks. Average coverage rates vary greatly between Member States, however vulnerable groups exist all over the Region. This reduction in coverage rates have been influenced by media scares and groups/individuals opposed to immunization. Also, immunization often suffers from low political commitment due to competing health priorities.

EIW aims to increase vaccination coverage by raising awareness of the importance of every child's need and right to be protected from vaccine preventable diseases. This initiative targets parents and caregivers, health care professionals and policy makers. A special focus is also placed on activities targeting vulnerable groups and extending access to vaccinations through the life course.^[3]

Partners of EIW

Partner organizations involved in EIW include, but are not limited to, UNICEF, the Measles & Rubella Initiative and the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) and Rotary International. Activities organized at the local and national levels take place in all WHO Member States involving a wide range of stakeholders.

EIW Royal Patron

Crown Princess Mary of Denmark is the patron of the WHO Regional Office for Europe and, as such, has participated in activities related to European Immunization Week. At the launch of EIW 2008, she stated, "It is the right of every child to grow up healthy, and vaccinated against those diseases that can so easily be controlled. I hope that the countries within the region will act quickly and effectively to ensure that children and adults, especially those in vulnerable and hard-to-reach groups, have access to immunization and basic health services."^[5]

Related Research Articles

Vaccination is the administration of a vaccine to help the immune system develop immunity from a disease. Vaccines contain a microorganism or virus in a weakened, live or killed state, or proteins or toxins from the organism. In stimulating the body's adaptive immunity, they help prevent sickness from an infectious disease. When a sufficiently large percentage of a population has been vaccinated, herd immunity results. Herd immunity protects those who may be immunocompromised and cannot get a vaccine because even a weakened version would harm them. The effectiveness of vaccination has been widely studied and verified. Vaccination is the most effective method of preventing infectious diseases; widespread immunity due to vaccination is largely responsible for the worldwide eradication of smallpox and the elimination of diseases such as polio and tetanus from much of the world. However, some diseases, such as measles outbreaks in America, have seen rising cases due to relatively low vaccination rates in the 2010s – attributed, in part, to vaccine hesitancy. According to the World Health Organization, vaccination prevents 3.5–5 million deaths per year.

Immunization, or immunisation, is the process by which an individual's immune system becomes fortified against an infectious agent.

The DPT vaccine or DTP vaccine is a class of combination vaccines against three infectious diseases in humans: diphtheria, pertussis, and tetanus. The vaccine components include diphtheria and tetanus toxoids and either killed whole cells of the bacterium that causes pertussis or pertussis antigens. The term toxoid refers to vaccines which use an inactivated toxin produced by the pathogen which they are targeted against to generate an immune response. In this way, the toxoid vaccine generates an immune response which is targeted against the toxin which is produced by the pathogen and causes disease, rather than a vaccine which is targeted against the pathogen itself. The whole cells or antigens will be depicted as either "DTwP" or "DTaP", where the lower-case "w" indicates whole-cell inactivated pertussis and the lower-case "a" stands for "acellular". In comparison to alternative vaccine types, such as live attenuated vaccines, the DTP vaccine does not contain any live pathogen, but rather uses inactivated toxoid to generate an immune response; therefore, there is not a risk of use in populations that are immune compromised since there is not any known risk of causing the disease itself. As a result, the DTP vaccine is considered a safe vaccine to use in anyone and it generates a much more targeted immune response specific for the pathogen of interest.

Pulse Polio is an immunisation campaign established by the government of India to eliminate poliomyelitis (polio) in India by vaccinating all children under the age of five years against the polio virus. The project fights polio through a large-scale, pulse vaccination programme and monitoring for poliomyelitis cases.

A vaccination schedule is a series of vaccinations, including the timing of all doses, which may be either recommended or compulsory, depending on the country of residence. A vaccine is an antigenic preparation used to produce active immunity to a disease, in order to prevent or reduce the effects of infection by any natural or "wild" pathogen. Vaccines go through multiple phases of trials to ensure safety and effectiveness.

Varicella vaccine, also known as chickenpox vaccine, is a vaccine that protects against chickenpox. One dose of vaccine prevents 95% of moderate disease and 100% of severe disease. Two doses of vaccine are more effective than one. If given to those who are not immune within five days of exposure to chickenpox it prevents most cases of disease. Vaccinating a large portion of the population also protects those who are not vaccinated. It is given by injection just under the skin. Another vaccine, known as zoster vaccine, is used to prevent diseases caused by the same virus – the varicella zoster virus.

A vaccination policy is a health policy adopted in order to prevent the spread of infectious disease. These policies are generally put into place by State or local governments, but may also be set by private facilities, such as workplaces or schools. Many policies have been developed and implemented since vaccines were first made widely available.

The Expanded Program on Immunization is a World Health Organization program with the goal to make vaccines available to all children.

World Hepatitis Day, observed on July 28 every year, aims to raise global awareness of hepatitis — a group of infectious diseases known as hepatitis A, B, C, D, and E — and encourage prevention, diagnosis and treatment. Hepatitis affects hundreds of millions of people worldwide, causing acute and chronic disease and killing close to 1.34 million people every year. Hepatitis can cause inflammation of the liver both acutely and chronically, and can kill a person. In some countries hepatitis B is the most common cause of cirrhosis and may also cause liver cancer.

Vaccinate Your Family (VYF), formerly known as Every Child By Two (ECBT), is a non-profit organization, based in the United States, which advocates for vaccinations. Founded in 1991, its stated goals are to "raise awareness of the critical need for timely immunizations and to foster a systematic way to immunize all of America's children by age two." ECBT was founded by former First Lady of the United States Rosalynn Carter and former First Lady of Arkansas Betty Bumpers. ECBT was renamed to Vaccinate Your Family in 2018.

Vaccination Week In The Americas (VWA) is an annual public health campaign by the member states of the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) to promote equity and access to immunization. It is marked each year during the last week of April.

A vaccine-preventable disease is an infectious disease for which an effective preventive vaccine exists. If a person acquires a vaccine-preventable disease and dies from it, the death is considered a vaccine-preventable death.

Italy is known for its generally very good health system, and the life expectancy is 80 for males and 85 for females, placing the country 5th in the world for life expectancy, and low infant mortality. In comparison to other Western countries, Italy has a relatively low rate of adult obesity, as there are several health benefits of the Mediterranean diet. The proportion of daily smokers was 22% in 2012, down from 24.4% in 2000 but still slightly above the OECD average. Smoking in public places including bars, restaurants, night clubs and offices has been restricted to specially ventilated rooms since 2005.

In 2012, life expectancy at birth in Spain reached 82.5 years, one of the highest among OECD countries and more than two years higher than the OECD average. Only Japan, Iceland and Switzerland had a higher life expectancy than Spain in 2012. The top three causes of death since 1970 have been cardiovascular diseases, cancer and respiratory diseases.

The Vaccines for Children Program (VFC) is a federally funded program in the United States providing no-cost vaccines to children who lack health insurance or who otherwise cannot afford the cost of the vaccination. The VFC program was created by the Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1993 and is required to be a new entitlement of each state's Medicaid plan under section 1928 of the Social Security Act. The program was officially implemented in October 1994 and serves eligible children in all U.S. states, as well as the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands, American Samoa, Guam, and the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands.

Tetanus vaccine, also known as tetanus toxoid (TT), is a toxoid vaccine used to prevent tetanus. During childhood, five doses are recommended, with a sixth given during adolescence.

Pakistan is one of the two remaining countries in the world where poliomyelitis (polio) is still categorized as an endemic viral infection, the other one being Afghanistan. While it has yet to fully eradicate Polio, there has been a downwards trend in the number of reported cases per year; the total count of wild poliovirus cases in Pakistan in 2019 was 147, compared to 84 in 2020, 1 in 2021, 20 in 2022 and 6 in 2023.

World Immunization Week is a global public health campaign to raise awareness and increase rates of immunization against vaccine-preventable diseases around the world. It takes place each year during the last week of April.

New Incentives is a non-governmental organization (NGO) that operates in Nigeria, running a conditional cash transfer (CCT) program. They aim to increase infantile vaccination through cash transfers, raising public awareness and reducing the frequency of vaccine stockout.

The 2022 edition of the World Immunization Week will be observed from 24 to 30 April 2022. The World Immunization Week is a global public health campaign for raising awareness for immunization against vaccine preventable diseases. The theme of this year's event is Long Life for All-in pursuit of a long life well lived. The official hashtags of the event are #Vaccines4Life and #LongLifeForAll. The organizations such as UNICEF, GAVI and Global Polio Eradication Initiative have partnered with the World Health Organization in the 2022 edition of World Immunization Week.

References

↑ WHO
↑ WHO Regional Office for Europe, About European Immunization Week
1 2 "European Immunization Week 2005". www.euro.who.int. 2016-02-08. Retrieved 2016-02-08.
1 2 "European Immunization Week". www.euro.who.int. 2016-02-08. Retrieved 2016-02-08.
↑ "Official web site of HRH Crown Princess Mary". Archived from the original on 2009-01-31. Retrieved 2010-02-24.

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[1] WHO

[EIW_web_site-2] WHO Regional Office for Europe, About European Immunization Week

[:0-3] 1 2 "European Immunization Week 2005". www.euro.who.int. 2016-02-08. Retrieved 2016-02-08.

[:1-4] 1 2 "European Immunization Week". www.euro.who.int. 2016-02-08. Retrieved 2016-02-08.

[HRH_web_site-5] "Official web site of HRH Crown Princess Mary". Archived from the original on 2009-01-31. Retrieved 2010-02-24.

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